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Friday, 31 January 2014

We came and we saw the way in, the anti pikey spikey bars had been cut by the locals, but the anti-vandal paint had been painted on the whole place like honey from a Winnie the Poo story.

So we kicked empty beer cans, we took some photos from around and about and left - 10 points to the black maple syrup, nil pwah to the lame intrepid explorers (Urban Spaceman has a nice car with "get you big boy" leather effect seats with a rather fetching beige finish).

The ex trawler ship Sarsia sits sunken in front of the tower for added interest - first photo taken with the Nokia 1020 (edited in the car on the phone), second shot Pentax K-500.

I had taken a couple of shots on a fly over last summer and it looked rather a nice spot for some pics.

But sadly Birkenhead is a tad bit grim in the cold light of winter, but oh yeah I forgot - that's the whole idea....

Above Pentax K-500, below Nokia Lumia 1020

So we pottered and mooched, it would seem that Birkenhead and Liverpool could be a treasure trove of derpness and we will return once more....

Sunday, 19 January 2014

After a potter around Birkenhead and skirt round the edges of Liverpool we spotted this place.

In 1981, Margaret Thatcher wanted to allow Liverpool to fall into a "managed decline" and sadly the home city of the Beatles, Tom Baker, Paul McGann and (the simply amazing) Derek Acorah to this day is a major shit hole - despite its amazing architecture.

Its a sad reflection of Liverpool that when you hit "the big time" you flee the city like a rat on a sinking ship.

On with the pics.

And before any Scousers decide to have a go at me, just remember I live in Bolton and even Peter Kay packed his bags and f***ed off from Bolton for a life in Bury.

Tuesday, 14 January 2014

A growing selection of my photos are now for sale on the Redbubble website - no worries as anything else you want just contact me thru Flickr, as always many pics are free to use for students etc (but please ask), for business use usually a small donation to a cancer charity I support will secure - either buy from Redbubble or send me a message again thru my Flickr.

Please don't steal I as I hunt thieves down like a wild dog and have toasted multimillion dollar companies.

Back in October 2012 I popped round to Agecroft Mortuary Chapel, to have a look at what is officially in the UK top twenty of historical properties at risk - Urban Spaceman and I en-route to his first flight with Captain Pugwash, dropped in for another look see.

On the previous visit the building was slowly being enveloped by triffid, thankfully someone has got the beanstalk trimmers out and hacked away at the foliage.

Its still overgrown, but a least you can see the building now, with its darting tree rats.

Out of respect to a graveyard of busy mourners (and our lack of Ninja like "Powers") we didn't pop over the rather spikey fence, but peered thru the windows at the fallen floors, ceilings and pigeon poo.

Sadly merely trimming your bush will not save a hole

No doubt we will pop back at some point, hopefully somebody will save this wonderful building before it falls down.

Anyway on to the airport, for Urban Spaceman had an unexpected flight to catch, but that is another story for another day.....

Friday, 10 January 2014

I took the plunge, just before Christmas I dumped my rather battered iPhone, having gone thru 3 screens and left with a phone that only worked on hands free.

I'd rather fancied the Nokia Lumia 1020 for a while, with its monster camera lens, I wanted something to use in the plane with GPS for location identification because you spot things and you can struggle on identification of what you have shot.

So here are a few shots, some edited with the Nokia software, with RAW support coming shortly what I'm giving a big thumbs up can only get even better.

First off, the Nokia Lumia 1020 is great in low light, a couple of cave shots - no flash used.

A gloomy aircraft hanger, Urban Spaceman nervously trudging to his first and long overdue flight with Captain Pugwash.

Another low light pic, a night shot of the winter fair in Bolton.

Finally a few daytime shots, all gloomy weather - I'm bit guilty of tilty-shifty messing about with the phones editing app.

oh, one more - from the plane, ground speed about 100 mph-ish, unedited and taken in failing light.